Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, you can have a medical certificate for study / university. When you request a medical certificate select ‘study’ as the purpose for your certificate.

Yes, you can have a medical certificate for carers leave. When you request a medical certificate select ‘carers leave’ as the purpose for your certificate.

What this question is really asking is ‘are electronic signatures on healthcare documents as valid as hand-written signatures on hard-copy documents?’ The short answer is: Yes, they are. Australian courts weigh the validity of electronic signatures in the same way that they would weigh the validity of hard-copy / hand-signed documents (Williams Group Australia Pty Ltd v. Crocker [2016] NSWCA 265). The Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth) defines evidence requirements as ‘evidence that would satisfy a reasonable person’ and the Australian Government Fair Work Ombudsman states that medical certificates and statutory declarations are examples of acceptable forms of evidence. The COVID pandemic and need for social distancing has meant that electronically signed documents are widely recognisable and accepted worldwide. They are also more secure than traditional paper-based signatures. Electronically signed medical certificates from medcertificates.com.au are widely accepted by employers. Employers are also able to verify the validity of a document issued by medcertificates.com.au (see below).

No, please see a health professional in your country of residence.

Yes, although casual workers may not have an entitlement for paid personal / carers leave, casual workers can have medical certificates. This may help to justify a workplace absence to an employer.

Medical certificates from medcertificates.com.au are privately billed.

Yes, you can have a medical certificate for COVID or a COVID related illness. If you are unwell with COVID or in a COVID high-risk group, it is recommended that you are reviewed by a health professional. Many patients in high-risk groups may be eligible for anti-viral therapies.

Medcertificates.com.au will issue online medical certificates for minor health problems of an uncomplicated nature. Examples of minor health problems may include simple upper respiratory tract infections (cough, colds, flu and runny nose), sports injuries, allergies, rashes / urticaria, diarrhoeal illnesses (non-severe), headaches / migraine, stomach aches, sore throats / laryngitis, mild fevers, simple pain, earache, haemorrhoids, and insomnia. If you have more severe symptoms, you should seek an assessment from a health professional.

We will not issue a certificate for any serious medical problems including (but not limited to): chest pain, heart palpitations, shortness of breath, suspected sepsis, inability to swallow fluids or saliva, weakness or numbness down one side, loss of vision, slurred speech, confusion, moderate or severe bleeding, severe pain, suicidal ideation, severe acute mental health disturbances. We will also not issue medical certificates for any individuals that belong in a high-risk group. High risk groups include (but are not limited to): active cancer affecting the blood or bone marrow, high dose steroids, treatment with disease modifying anti-rheumatological drugs, primary immunodeficiency, HIV with CD4 counts below 250/ul, untreated HIV, haemodialysis or peritoneal dialysis. If you are experiencing any of the high-risk symptoms or are in a high-risk group, we recommend that you instead consult with your health professional.

Yes, when you complete your details to request your medical certificate select the ‘I can do alternative duties’ box. Your ability to do alternative duties will be indicated on your certificate.

Medical certificates do not expire although you have a requirement under the Fair Work Act 2009 to give your employer notice as soon as practicable.

The number of days you may need off-work depends on your underlying condition. A medical certificate from medcertificates.com.au will allow up to three days of personal / carers leave. If you require more days off, you will need to see your local health professional.

If you have personal / carers leave available and become unwell while on annual leave you may be able to have this portion of your leave transferred to personal / sick leave. This may allow you to keep hold of your precious annual leave days. Get an online medical certificate and discuss your circumstances with your employer.

Every industrial award and agreement is different – it is recommended that you check your own award / agreement to see if your employer requires a certificate. Ultimately whether a certificate is required or not is up to your employer. We feel it is better to be prepared and have a certificate ready!

Once approved, your online medical certificate will be sent to you by SMS, email and is available from your online portal.

Your medical information is not shared with your employer. This information is confidential between you and the doctor who writes your certificate. The exception to this is where you select to include your diagnosis on your certificate, and then the only information we will share is the diagnosis itself.

Medical Certificates Australia does not issue online medical certificates to individuals aged under 18 years.

Medical Certificates Australia does not routinely require any consultations or appointments. Simply complete an online form which will be reviewed by a doctor. If the doctor requires more information, they will contact you directly.

Medical Certificates Australia does not issue work cover / workers compensation certificates.

Yes, Medical Certificates Australia does provide return-to-work certificates. Certain health criteria and infectious disease exclusion periods apply.

If the doctor does not approve your certificate, you will be automatically refunded your full price paid.

As a medical certificate is a legal document, your identity does need to be verified. A photo of the front of your driver’s licence, government issued photo identification card, proof of age card, or the photo page of your passport is sufficient. Club membership cards are not sufficient evidence. Photos must be clear and legible. Insufficient evidence will result in a declined application. These documents will be sent through to our team for verification when you complete your certificate request.

There is a lot of confusion online regarding what 'backdating' a medical certificate means. A backdated document refers to the practice of stating that a document was issued prior to the date of assessment. This is, of course, an unacceptable and fraudulent practice. Medical Certificates Australia will only ever write the current date on a certificate as the date of issue. It is possible and acceptable, however, for a practitioner to certify that an illness commenced prior to the date of assessment. The date of issue must be the same as the date of assessment and the medical practitioner must determine when, in all likelihood, the illness did commence. Generally, certificates will not include an illness commencement date of more than 24 hours prior to the date of assessment and must be issued within the same illness. For example, say you develop a migraine headache on Monday but do not seek help or a medical certificate as you feel it will likely improve on its own. By Tuesday morning, however, your headache has worsened and you realise you will need a further 24hrs off work or study. It would be very reasonable in this situation to certify your illness for both the Monday and Tuesday. If you have a similar situation please provide as much information for our doctors as possible - the more information you can provide the better our doctors can help your individual situation. If you were unwell (or cared for someone who was unwell) but an excessive period of time has elapsed and you did not seek a medical certificate at the time you may be able to make a statutory declaration. Medical Certificates Australia will shortly offer the ability to witness statutory declarations.

A Statutory Declaration is a statement of fact and is legislated by the Oaths and Affirmations Act 2018 (Cth). In a Statutory Declaration you declare a statement to be true and correct in the presence of an authorised witness (a member of the notary public - such as a doctor). It is a criminal offense to make a statement that you know is untrue and is punishable by a fine of up to 600 penalty units, or imprisonment for up to 5 years, or both. Statutory Declarations are acceptable as evidence of sickness/ personal leave under the Fair Work Act 2009 (Cth). They are particularly useful when you had a period of sickness but did not immediately seek a medical certificate. An example might be if you had to attend to a family crisis and now need to provide a statement for your employer. Please note, the role of the doctor is to witness your statement and not to verify it (although, of course, we will not sign any declaration that is known to be false). The onus to provide a truthful and correct statement is on the person making the declaration.

This payment method is not offered by our current payment provider and the merchant fees are very high (roughly twice that of American Express). We will offer PayPal if and when this becomes offered as a payment method by our payment provider.

Medical Certificates Australia is required to keep medical records for 7 years since the last episode of contact. This is detailed within our Privacy Policy. Medical Certificates Australia does not directly process any payments and does not store any billing or credit card details (In fact our site never actually 'sees' any of your payment information as this is directly handled by the payment provider). Medical Certificates Australia does not store your passwords (we create a hash of your password and compare this to your actual password at runtime. This is also why we cannot retrieve any forgotten passwords and can only reset them for you).

You select your required date(s) during the certificate application process (if the doctor feels the leave is excessive or not genuine they will contact you). Please take care when selecting your certificate type and dates required. A preview of your certificate text is shown to you prior to checkout. It is your responsibility to read this text carefully. Amendments to finalised medical certificates currently attract a $4.50 amendment fee. Statutory Declarations cannot be amended once issued. If you require an amendment sign into your account > My Documents > Request a Certificate Extension or Date Amendment

From the employer portal (on the homepage) enter your email address as well as the reference number quoted on the top right of the document you received (Please note this is case-sensitive and requires an exact match so enter this carefully). You can also email us the certificate if you prefer (our email address is on each certificate).

As the forgery of a medical certificate is an offence under law, Medical Certificates Australia strongly recommends that all fraudulent certificates are reported both to us, and to your local police.

Penalties for fraud range from immediate termination of employment to fines and a maximum 10-years of imprisonment.

Yes, you can extend a certificate up to two times. To request an extension sign into your account, choose ‘My Documents’ and select ‘Amend a Document’.

If you require an excessive number of certificates or days off then you should be having a face-to-face consultation with your regular doctor and seeking further certificates and advice from them. We limit the number of days off covered by all certificate types to 10 days within the most recent 30-day period.

Doctors employed by Medical Certificates Australia are registered and provide services in every state of Australia. All certificates will contain the doctor's AHPRA registration and provider number. As an online-only business, our certificates only state our business URL address as medcertificates.com.au. To see an example of our certificates please click here

Yes, we can do certificates for travel.

In most cases, our documents cannot be claimed on insurance as we are 100% privately billed and our services do not attract any Medicare benefits.

There are a number of reasons that this can happen including:

• The form session timed out.
• The form is incomplete and contains errors that have not yet been addressed.
• That you used bookmark directly to the certificates form (the URL to this page is dynamic).
• The browser is using an old cached version of the page.
• The browser settings are not allowing JavaScript.
• The browser version not being up-to-date.

To fix these issues:

• Try again if you think the session may have just timed out.
• Ensure that all fields are complete, have a green tick, and there are no errors messages in red.
• Only bookmark the home page (https://medcertificates.com.au) or sign-in page (https://medcertificates.com.au/sign-in).
• Clear your browser cache.
• Ensure that your browser version is up-to-date.
• Ensure that your browser allows javascript.

Changing browsers or devices may also be helpful if you continue to have issues.

Medical Certificates Australia treats your personal information with the utmost privacy and confidentiality that you would expect of a professional medical service. For more information, you can read our privacy policy that details what information we collect, why we collect it, how information is stored and the robust security we employ to safeguard your information.

We only offer online medical certificates with start dates ranging from the day before yesterday to tomorrow. If you require a certificate dated earlier than this you may need to complete a statutory declaration. Statutory declarations are equally acceptable to employers and covered by the Fair Work Act. You can read more information about statutory declarations here. To see an example of our statutory declarations click here Prices and products are listed on the site at https://medcertificates.com.au/pricing/

See a sample of our medical certificates

See a sample of our statutory declarations

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